


Moral Turpitude

by grasssea



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Drugs and Hijinks, Not-A-Cop-Chloe AU, They Still Argue A Lot, they're actually in a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 06:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8193799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grasssea/pseuds/grasssea
Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Chloe isn't a cop, she and Lucifer are friends with benefits, they still solve crimes. You can take the buddies out of the cop, but you can't rob them of their innate senses of justice and nosiness.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Episode Eve! I love AU explorations, Chloe has such a strong sense of self that it's impossible to remove her entirely from her personality, and her personality is ready to kick ass and take names in the pursuit of Great Justice. Also, this might be the most explicitly romantic thin I've ever written with them.

Sometime after one- when all the other party guests had collapsed into drug induced stupors and clothes littered the floor- Lucifer snuck up behind her and laid a line of butterfly kisses down her hickey ravaged neck.

Chloe let him, one arm even snaked out to pull his bare torso closer, but she didn’t take her eyes off the view. Los Angeles in lights was spread out before her, and she never got tired of it.

“Darling,” he whispered in her ear, “This is my brooding balcony. You’re stealing my charmingly byronic habits again.”

“It’s so beautiful,” she said, wonderingly, and to her surprise found tears in her eyes. The tabloids would have a field day with this, former wild child and Bond Girl Chloe Decker, sobbing on Lucifer Morningstar’s balcony in a red silk robe. A lifetime of acting had taught her to recognize a beautiful scene. Her and Lucifer, in tantalizing states of undress, the light night breeze teasing hair and making loosely tied dressing gowns flutter. The stars shimmered above, and Lucifer was caught up in them as always, but Chloe only had eyes for the city. Her city and her father’s, though not in the same way.

Lucifer tore himself away from his own contemplation just long enough to notice her distress- a truly impressive show of situational awareness from the undisputed lord of LA narcissism.

“Now what’s the matter?” he asked, “I thought we had a lovely night and I can still get you back to your house before morning, after a bit of fun, of course.”

One hand tugged at the shoulder of her robe and she batted him away, which always delighted him. He claimed, loudly and at great length, that Chloe was the only person who could resist him. Her complete disinterest was what had made him take an interest in her, all those months ago. They’d long past the point of celibacy, but Chloe made a point to turn him down on a regular basis, just to keep him hanging on. Having him around kept her… sane.

It was a weird thing to say about a man who regularly extolled the virtues of heavy drinking and hookups, but she couldn’t deny that she’d been much more stable since he’d started hanging around. A better mother to Trixie, a more reliable actress, less likely to pick fights with paparazzi… she’d even started talking to her mother again after Penny and Lucifer had a gab session. Dealing With Lucifer was such a full time job that she didn’t have time to get into arguments with random clerks or less random production execs. It was almost like having a real people job, something more engaging than acting and the reality circuit.

“I was just… thinking about someone.” Chloe admitted, her voice tight with emotion. She knew immediately that she shouldn’t have spoken. Morningstar perked up immediately, and he was like a dog with a bone once he found something to pester her about.

“Who? Trixie’s father?”

Chloe shut her lips firmly and he pouted, like a child who had been denied a sweet.

“Oh, please. Come on, Chloe. You can’t just drop something like that and not explain.”

“It’s not Trixie’s dad,” she admitted, feeling the need to stop that line of questioning before it got out of control. No one knew who Trixie’s father- or as the tabloid called him, Chloe Decker’s Mystery Baby Daddy- was. She doubted even he knew, to be honest. Dan had been a drunken one night stand during a bad part of her life. He was a good man, probably. He just wasn’t likely to suspect the girl he’d picked up at a police funded charity event and tried to help home was not-so-secretly C-List celebrity and regular tabloid fodder Chloe Decker. He’d moved back home to San Diego without a clue.

“Another ex then? Your mother?” Lucifer softened somewhat. He understood family issues in his own semi-delusional way.

“My father,” Chloe admitted, schooling her face into steely stillness. “You know what, it’s late. I want to go home.”

Trixie would wonder where she was in the morning. If there was one thing Chloe prided herself on, it was being the best mother she could be in her… circumstances. She wasn’t going to repeat her parent’s mistakes.

Lucifer had frozen at the mere mention of fatherhood, and Chloe gently pushed him off her so she could go collect her things. Party guests were snoring, and there were suspicious pills on the table. It looked, in short, like a den of vice. She didn’t know why she kept coming back, except that it was exciting. Just being around Lucifer’s patented brands of hedonism and obnoxiousness gave her enough of an adrenaline rush to keep her level, without any actual illegality, car chases, or fist fights required.

She wasn’t surprised to find him waiting for her at the elevator, Maze next to him, whispering in his ear.

“You are not driving me home.” Chloe told him, laying down the law early. “I saw what you put in your body a few hours ago.”

He was fidgeting nervously, in a way quite unlike him, “How about you drive and I just go with you.”

Maze was giving Chloe significant looks that Chloe did not know how to interpret. “There is absolutely no reason to do that.” she said firmly, still trying to interpret Maze’s eyebrow speak. Chloe had been tutored in the art of the insinuation, she was in showbiz for god’s sake, but Maze seemed to be speaking in a whole other language- that or she was very, very bad at non verbal communication.

“You had three shots!” Lucifer argued.

Chloe’s face screwed up with indignation. “Four hours ago!” she whisper shouted, and one of the doped out party guests stirred. She had no idea what they’d all had but apparently it was potent. Lucifer was the only one still standing and she’d concluded long ago that he was an outlier where mind altering substances were concerned. Evolution- or God, if you believed Lucifer- had crafted exquisite hunters, devious hiders, and apparently the world’s only born party animal.

“Just let me come with you,” Lucifer pleaded, and Chloe capitulated. Truth be told she didn’t mind the company on the drive home, provided he behaved himself. Her sigh of surrender made him smile and Maze’s eyebrows seemed pacified. Chloe shot the other woman a smile as Lucifer fetched his coat, and she returned it slightly more tersely. They got along, or at least Chloe thought they did. She’d always sympathized with Maze, who had never seemed like she quite where she wanted to be either.

Sweet Delilah was still fast asleep on a lounge couch downstairs, and Lucifer smiled fondly at her as they headed for the garage. Chloe counted that as one of the night’s successes; that she and Lucifer had managed to keep Delilah sober and soothe her worries. Some people could be allowed to make their own bad decisions, and some people needed help protecting them from themselves. Delilah was one of the latter. Chloe had never been a fan of helplessness, but Delilah could tug on anyone’s heartstrings. The fallen good girl story wasn’t uncommon in LA, and it never stopped being tragic.

As a certified Good Girl Gone Bad And Then Semi-Good Again, Choe Decker was prepared to testify to the fact that LA could ruin your life before you realized it was gone.

They took one of Lucifer’s cars because Chloe’s was still at her house, in case the nanny needed to go somewhere. Chloe wasn’t sure how she was going to detox him so he was safe to drive back to Lux, but that was a problem for the near future. In the meantime she was happy to breathe the almost fresh air. Lucifer was uncharacteristically quiet next to her, not even fiddling with the radio.

It was only after they were well onto the highway that he spoke again, and predictably, it was to pester her.

“So, why your father?” he asked eagerly.

“Look, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Lucifer folded on leg up and leaned back, making himself comfortable. “Oh, come on. I shared my traumatic backstory with you.”

You plagiarized Paradise Lost is what you did, Chloe thought tiredly. “Just… please, Lucifer.” Knowing his need to project she cut straight to the point, if he wanted to talk about his issues, they could talk about his issues.

(God, she needed to find him a therapist.)

“What was Maze talking to you about?” she asked quickly.

Lucifer grimaced now that the shoe was on the other foot, “My brother, still hanging around. He’s been bothering Maze. Wants me to come back home.”

Chloe vaguely remembered him mentioning something similar before, about a brother pressuring him to leave LA. She’d never actually met the man, and she gave it about fifty fifty chances of him being real, but it was clearly bothering Lucifer and that was what mattered.

“What would the classy orgy circuit be without you? So many strippers out of jobs, so many poor innocent socialites deprived of their chances to disappoint their parents. Just tell him to lay off. If you’re not leaving, you’re not leaving.”

Lucifer sighed, “Alas, sweet Chloe, it’s not so easy. He’s a tenacious prick.”

Chloe considered herself something of a problem solver, so the declaration did not phase her. “Pretend you got someone pregnant. Fake a life threatening illness. Ask Maze to punch him, hell, I’ll punch him.”

Lucifer smiled fondly. “You do love punishing wrongdoers, don’t you? But I’m afraid this isn’t some spoiled college kid starting a bar fight, or a mugger you can apprehend. He’s out of your league, love, in a big way.”

“I bet my fist says differently,” Chloe muttered darkly as they turned into her neighborhood. Pretty suburban stucco houses that cost more than most people made in a lifetime, immaculate drought resistant gardens, and overworked parents. It was in a good school district though, which made the ridiculous property taxes well worth it, and unlike most of LA, it was quiet at night. The streets were empty of cars and only a handful of lights were on. The effect was eerily dreamy, and Chloe felt like an interloper into the world of flickering streetlights and dimly illuminated tonyon hedges.

Lucifer, on the other hand, fit right in. Golden fluorescence shone off the planes of his face, honing edges, deepening shadows, and bringing fire to his eyes. Catlike confidence, his supreme faith in his ability to belong anywhere and be loved, made him look natural in any mean street, boardroom, or bedroom.

Chloe shivered, and reminded herself to focus on the road, on getting home to her daughter.

When they pulled into the driveway she gave herself a few minutes before stepping out and joining Lucifer on her porch. Her bootheels clicked a little too loudly on the pavement, and the motion activated light had already flickered on. With any hope Trixie would stay down, she had school tomorrow- a good argument for not inviting Lucifer in.

(Trixie had taken a bizarre liking to her mother's "friend" and for that matter, to Lucifer's friends as well. Maze had ended up on Chloe's emergency contacts list for the school, a fact that made her sit up in the middle of the night and contemplate what her life had come to.)

On the other hand… he was a wreck. His brother clearly had him shaken up, and he’d done a small pharmacy’s worth of drugs in the last week. Dad would have called it criminal negligence, letting him drive off. Chloe had well past the point of being a good law abiding girl, but she still had some common sense.

“So, is this where we part ways for the morning, or am I supposed to kiss you on your doorstep?” Lucifer snarked, “Or, we could go inside and have a little bit of a nightcap….”

His ability to make any word into a sexual invitation hadn’t failed him yet, Chloe noted. She shook her head. “No, I’ve got to get Trixie up for school and then I have a photoshoot at nine.”

He waggled his eyebrows and Chloe gave him an unimpressed stare. “Stop being a pervert. I just do this to put food on the table.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” he mused, and was interrupted by a buzzing from his pocket that Chloe assumed was his phone- though it never paid to make assumptions with Lucifer.

He drew the phone- thank goodness- from his pocket and answered quickly and quietly as Chloe fished around for her keys.

“Maze? Yes…... I’m with Chloe Decker, as one might expect given that I left with Chloe Decker…... Slow down. I’m sorry, what?”

His voice did not raise but lower somehow, growing more intense as the pitch dropped. Chloe started to shush him, then looked at his face. Lucifer looked shaken, and more than that, he looked furious.

“Yes, I’ll be right back.” he promised, and hung up. There was an ugliness in his eyes Chloe hadn’t seen in a few weeks, and it was as concerning as it was exciting. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

“Delilah’s dead. I have to get back to Lux.”

Chloe fumbled her keys and they hit the pavement with a clatter. “How? Who?”

“Maze didn’t exactly give details!” Lucifer said, frustrated. “She said the police were at Lux though. I have to go.”

“I’ll come with you,” Chloe offered immediately, even though she knew she couldn’t.

“No, no. You have a little ragamuffin. Food to put on the table, that sort of thing.”

“At least keep in touch then,” she ordered, “And mention my name to the head of the Homicide Unit if you have to. I used to be a big contributor to the Memorial Foundation, before Trixie made me clean up my act a little.”

“Done,” he said, scooping her keys up in one smooth motion and folding her fingers around them. “If I don’t get in touch, come by Lux. I might need a respectable looking friend.”

“I’m anything but respectable,” Chloe said bitterly.

“I know, I love it.”

Lucifer started to step off the porch but Chloe caught him by the arm, tugging him into a brief, robust kiss.

Then she let him go.

She went inside, showered, changed, kissed Trixie, and- despite herself- thought back to the days of studying case law and crime statistics, back when she thought she actually had a chance of being an officer.

Devil or not, Lucifer was good at making people want things they couldn’t have. Chloe had never thought herself immune, just a little resistant, and it looked like her barriers had finally come tumbling down.

She might actually have to tell him.

 

 

 

 

 

They met at Lux, at noon.

The crime scene tape made Chloe’s heart ache, even if the police officers were gone. The bloody stain on the floor where Delilah had bled to death made her angry.

Maze wasn’t in, possibly dealing with the Lux employees who would need to be told not to come in for work today, minor murder, you know how it goes. Lucifer seemed to have gotten into the scotch just fine without her.

Chloe slid into the booth next to him and took the glass from his loose grip, took a mouthful to calm the screaming in her brain and asked, “What’s the verdict?”

“Failed robbery.”

“You don’t sound convinced.” Chloe noted, glancing back at the blood and broken glass on the floor. It didn’t look like a robbery to her either.

He snorted. “What sort of robber, confronted with a sleeping girl, shoots her and alerts everyone in the building to his presence? If only Maze had left him alive…”

Chloe spat out an ounce of good liquor onto the table. “Wait, Maze killed him?” That had not been part of the limited text updates she’d gotten.

“Accidentally,” Lucifer shrugged like it was no big deal. “She came downstairs and chased him outside, when he got in the car, she grabbed onto the side and… well, it all went downhill from there,” he paused, “our robber’s car was tampered with. Apparently the good people of the LAPD did not find that interesting.”

“Damn.” Chloe muttered. “Do you know anyone who would want Delilah dead?”

“Exes, producers, drug dealer or two” Lucifer made a face. “I have a short list, but no one stands out as having a real motive. Her old producer who she was in a relationship with has clearly moved on. Why? No offense, Chloe, but you don’t exactly strike me as the crime solving type.”

“You’d be surprised,” Chloe said softly to the scotch. “My dad was an officer. I have some connections, and some experience. And I know better than anyone that the force can be lazy. They want cases closed fast, especially ones where there’s no danger to anyone else. Conserving manpower and that sort of thing. I know if we want this case solved we’ll have to do it ourselves.”

“Ourselves?” Lucifer looked surprised. “This isn’t a fight you can break apart, or some roofie happy tosser you can put the fear of hell in, or some poor lost soul you can save from addiction. No that you’re not great at your weird killjoy thing, but I’m not sure this is really you, love.”

“Don’t patronize me.” Chloe barked, feeling a sneer come over her face. Even death and destruction couldn’t mute Lucifer’s innate smugness or her aggravation for long. They were like two polar forces, forever pulled into the same dynamic. “We’ve slept together a few times, I keep you from making bad choices on occasion, don’t think that you know me. I spent two years working to get into the Police Academy, and do you know what? I made it- well, every bit but the background check. Then I proceeded to do play multiple eyecandy roles in movies and make a lot of terrible choices as some sort twisted coping mechanism, so it’s not like I don’t know LA either. In fact, I’d bet I know it better than you, Mr. Connections.”

She took a deep breath and a little well earned satisfaction at Lucifer’s stunned speechlessness. “Delilah was my friend. I was helping her and you were helping her in a weird and slightly counterproductive way and she was helping herself. And now she’s dead and if we want justice we’re going to have to get it ourselves, since Maze is presumably in police custody until they figure out the whole killing people thing.”

“Actually,” Lucifer corrected, “They let her off since he drove himself into a wall. Maze is out dealing with some other matters. Point taken, however.” He gave her a leery glance before adding, “Did you really try to join the cops?”

“Yes.” Chloe admitted grudgingly.

“You? Tasteful not quite topless scene opposite James Bond, more fights with photographers than I could count, knows exactly when to cut someone off the heavy opioids? A cop?”

Chloe buried her head in her arms, instantly regretting even mentioning it. She liked Lucifer, trusted him, even. She was starting to come around to the fact that something was legitimately weird about him, he had his eyes mojo and the whole immune to hangovers thing. But he was not a rockstar at emotions. Somewhat to her surprise, a heavy ringed hand came down on her shoulder and patted her charily.

“I didn’t mean to imply that you were incapable,” he said, quietly, like emotions were about to sneak out of the woodwork and hold him hostage. “Just that it’s not the situations I usually imagine you in. You go to parties solely to pick fights and keep everyone else in line though, you're far too moral to be a police officer.”

She elbowed him in the gut, just hard enough to make him gasp a little. “You know, I wasn’t exactly the Madonna before I met you, but three months and I can’t help but think terrible things when you say stuff like that. It’s like you’re infectious, and I know I made you get a checkup before we slept together.”

“If you were the Madonna I would not have done half the things we did with you.” Lucifer told her, looking disgusted. “I have some standards.”

“Yeah, well. So did I once upon a time.” Chloe swilled the last drops of alcohol in the short glass, watching the amber beads chase each other around intently. Anything to avoid looking at Lucifer’s face. “I wasn’t the best behaved, but I had some limits. I kept my nose clean, for the most part. And after my dad died, when I realized I wanted to be a police officer, I thought I could make it. Sure, there was that movie,” she could feel Lucifer smirking behind her, “But I wasn’t too bad by the standards of teens in Hollywood. Especially in the nineties. But then I tried to apply and… there was a drug charge from when I was sixteen, an acquaintance got in trouble. I didn’t think it mattered, because I was barely involved. But it did. And I didn’t know what to do with my life after that, not until Trixie came along and I had a reason to clean my act up.”

“That sounds difficult.” Lucifer said, which was enough of an apology for Chloe, under the circumstances.

She shook off his rhythmically patting hand and stood up.

“Come on, we’ve got a case to solve. Are you the Devil or aren’t you?”

 

 

 

 

(He wasn't the devil, it turned out. He bled, even if he acted very surprised about it. And they both got a little shot, but sometimes that happened in the line of duty, Chloe knew that better than anyone. Maze watched Trixie while they were at the hospital, the press had a field day, and they had scandalous makeouts that made nurses fret. It wasn't exactly what Chloe had expected her life to look like at eighteen, but she wasn't going to complain.)  


(And justice and vigilante action and family drama and steamy good times were had by all, forever and ever, the end.)

**Author's Note:**

> They'd probably end up as shady anti-hero private detectives. At some point Dan would come back and realize he has a daughter and there would be drama. Shenanigans would occur.
> 
> (also, I'm at mazethequeen on tumblr, if anyone wants to check it out)


End file.
